GILROY
– Three Gilroy Unified School District teachers who were
fighting their layoffs canceled a request for an appeals hearing in
front of a judge.
GILROY – Three Gilroy Unified School District teachers who were fighting their layoffs canceled a request for an appeals hearing in front of a judge.
The teachers, who held three of the 45 positions terminated or reduced for next school year to offset state revenue shortfalls, were questioning their standing within GUSD seniority rankings. A court-style hearing to determine if GUSD’s ranking system was in error was supposed to take place Friday at district headquarters, but was canceled after lawyers for the teachers determined they had no case.
“The teachers just wanted to make sure their classification was correct and that it was legal to lay them off,” Gilroy Teachers Association President Michelle Nelson said. “It turned out the district was correct.”
The level of a teacher’s credentialing and the amount of time a teacher has been with the district is what’s used in determining who gets laid off first, under teachers union and district rules. The district and the Gilroy Teachers Association would not reveal the names of the teachers who had requested the appeal hearing.
“I think it went cleanly because we worked closely with the union back in February to rectify the order of employment,” Assistant Superintendent Linda Piceno said. “We worked very hard not to over-notice (hand out more pink slips than necessary) and create undue stress.”
In March, GUSD gave 33 teachers and administrators pink slips notifying them they would not have work next year. The cuts, which impact programs from class size reduction to special education, were part of an effort to trim $3 million in spending over the remainder of this school year and next.
Only teachers with emergency credentials were laid off. The administrators whose positions were cut will be offered work in a teaching capacity next year. The impact of the state’s massive revenue shortfall on Gilroy teachers has been slight compared to other districts across California.
In many districts, dozens to hundreds of fully credentialed teachers are being laid off next school year.
Although no firm figures have been established, the canceling of the appeals hearings will also save the district money. GUSD would have been responsible for paying the judge, the court reporter, its own lawyer and potentially the teachers’ lawyer had the appeals taken place.
